When it comes to racing bikes there really isn't anything that Carmen Small can't do. This week, the American will guest ride with Elbowz Racing at the men’s North Star Grand Prix, a tough six-stage race that starts on Wednesday with the St Paul time trial and concludes on Sunday with the challenging Stillwater Criterium.
“I haven’t been planning this for months,” Small told Cyclingnews. “It was planned last weekend and now I’m doing it. It was a huge surprise to myself, I’m a little bit in shock about it. What do I have to lose? If anything, I have a lot to gain because it will be great training at such a high level, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be honest.”
Small, a world-class road racer and time triallist over the past five years, has made some unexpected twists to her 2015 season. She left her former road team Specialized-lululemon for Twenty16 p/b Sho-Air. She started her track career by joining the US national team for the women's team pursuit on the World Cup circuit, where she contributed to their bronze-medal performance at the final round in Cali, Colombia, and then was selected to the team for the Track World Championships in France.
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She has gone on to have a successful road season with wins at the Pan American Continental Championships in the individual time trial and at Chrono Gatinueau. She was also second behind teammate Kristin Armstrong in the time trial at the USA Cycling Professional Road Championships. She admitted that she's in great form but was disappointed that there were no women's races to attend in June.
She committed to racing in the men’s North Star Grand Prix with Elbowz Racing, after the long-running women’s stage race of which she won twice, was cancelled earlier this year. She is also hoping that her efforts this week might help bring more exposure to the event, and reignited a future women’s race.
“It’s sad,” Small said. “This was my first NRC race as an amateur back in 2006, so it was sad for me to see it go away. I think on the bigger picture it’s important for me to bring a little bit more attention and media to the race. Maybe teams will start coming back to it and the promoters will put it on.”
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